But alas! while the webs grew longer
the price grew less and they are in a sad case.
I called, with a friend, on some of these weavers: one, an intelligent
man, with the prevailing Scotch type of face. We found him, accompanied
by a sickly wife, sitting by a scanty fire, ragged enough. This man for
his last web was paid at the rate of twopence a yard for weaving linen
with twenty hundred threads to the inch, but out of this money he had to
buy dressing and light, and have some one, the sickly wife I suppose, to
wind the bobbins for him. He must then pay rent for the poor cabin he
lived in, none too good for a stable, and supply all his wants on the
remainder.
Another weaver told me that all this dreary winter they had no bed-
clothes. They think by combining together they will be able to obtain
better prices; but they are so poor, the depression in the trade is such
a fearful reality that I am afraid they cannot combine or co-operate to
any purpose. However, people in such desperate circumstances grasp at
any hope.
It is wonderful with what disfavor some of these people receive a hint
of emigration. It seems like transportation to them. Truly these Irish
do cling to the soil.
The weavers seem to blame the manufacturers for the reduction of wages.
They complain that the trade is concentrated into a few hands; that
therefore they cannot sell where they can sell dearest, but are obliged
to take yarn from a manufacturer and return it to him in cloth. They
complain that he still further reduces the poor wage by fines. As many
of these have only a hut but no garden ground, they have nothing to fall
back on. There are many suffering great want, and with inherited Scotch
reticence suffering in silence. There may be some injustice and some
oppression, for that is human nature, but the hand-loom weaving is
doomed to disappear, I am afraid.
There are some complaints of the high price of land here, and of the
hard times for farmers, but there is no appearance of hard times.
Laborers are cheap enough. One shilling a day and food, or ten shillings
a week without food, seems to be the common wage. The people of Down and
Antrim, as far as I have gone, are rampantly loyal to Queen and
Government and to all in authority. If a few blame the manufacturers, or
think the land is too dear, the large majority blame the improvidence of
the poor. "They eat bacon and drink tea where potatoes and milk or
porridge and milk used to be good enough for them." It is difficult to
imagine the extravagance.
I went through part of the poor-house in Ballymena. It is beautifully
clean and sweet, and in such perfect order out and in that one is glad
to think of the sick or suffering poor having such a refuge. What fine,
patient, intelligent faces were among the sufferers in the infirmary.
The children in the school-room looked rosy and well-fed, and the babies
were nursed by the old women. So many of them - it was a sad sight
indeed.
V.
ONE RESULT OF THE COERCION ACT - THE AGRICULTURAL LABORERS IN DOWN AND
ANTRIM - WHISKEY - RAIN IN IRELAND - A DISCUSSION ON ORANGEISM.
It is the eighth of March. The weather remains frightfully inclement;
the snow and sleet is succeeded by incessant rain storms. The Coercion
bill has become law and even in the north there seems a difference in
the people. There is a carefulness of expressing an opinion on any
subject as if a reign of governmental terror had begun. The loyalty
always so fervent is now intense and loud. The people here think that
there is an epidemic of unreasonableness and causeless murmuring raging
at the south and west.
In all that I have seen in Down and Antrim, the agricultural laborers
seem to be never at any time much above starvation; any exceptionally
hard times bring it home to them. In cases of accident, disease, or old
age, they have no refuge but the workhouse. There is a constant
struggle, as heroic in God's sight as any struggle of their Scottish
ancestors, to escape this dreaded fate. When it does overtake them,
however, the beggar nurses wait upon the sick beggars with a tenderness
that is inexpressibly touching.
Emigration is impossible to the laborer or the hand-loom weaver. They
have no money, they have nothing to sell to make money, and they are
utterly unwilling to be torn from the places where they were born to be
expatriated as beggars, and as beggars set down upon a foreign shore. I
am literally giving utterance to the opinions expressed to me.
I have heard these people loudly accused of extravagance; on enquiry was
told that they bought American bacon and drank tea, whereas, if thrifty,
they would be content with potatoes and buttermilk, or ditto and stir-
about. As the cow has disappeared, and potatoes have been known to fail,
I did not see the extravagance so clearly as I saw the parsimony that
would grudge the hard-worked laborer or the pale over-worked weaver any
nourishment at all.
The charge of spending on whiskey seems more likely by the frightful
amount of whiskey shops. Ireland's whiskey bill is going up into
somewhere among the millions. It is a fearful pity that this tax on the
industry and energy of the people could not be abolished. Truth compels
me to add that faces liquor-painted abound most among the well-dressed
and apparently well-to-do class whom one meets on the way.
